Creators: Biden's Death Row Clemency Proves Need for Death Penalty

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators
December 23, 2024

Why did President Joe Biden commute the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates?

To start with, the president campaigned in 2020 on ending the federal death penalty. Although he directed the Justice Department to issue a moratorium on federal executions, legislation proposing to end state-sponsored death failed to gain any traction in Congress during his administration.

Additionally, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to carry out executions once in office. His track record reveals he isn't kidding. During the last six months of his prior term, the federal government carried out 13 executions. Contrast that with state executions in 2020, Trump's last year in office. There were seven executions in five states. In 2021, there were eight executions in the same number of states — all below the Mason-Dixon line.

The Trump administration conducted more executions in five months than any other presidency since the turn of the 20th century and carried out six executions during a presidential transition period, more than any other administration in the history of the United States. Prior to 2020, the federal government carried out only three executions in the modern era of the death penalty, most notably Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.

Whether it was a ploy to bolster his tough-guy bona fides or a lowbrow pitch to his "law and order" constituency, then-President Trump's bloodlust saw no boundary.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, those executed by the federal government included the first Native American ever executed by the federal government for the murder of a member of his own tribe on tribal lands.

The Trump administration oversaw the first federal execution in 68 years of an offender who was a teenager at the time the crime was committed.

The federal executions of 2020 included: the first federal execution in 57 years for a crime committed in a state that had abolished the death penalty; executions carried out against the wishes of the victims' families; and the first lame-duck executions in more than a century.

As of December 2024, here were 40 men on federal death row. Biden commuted the sentences of 37. All of the offenders were convicted of murder. They will now serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

According to The New York Times, of the 37 men whose sentences were commuted, 15 are white, 15 are Black, six are Latino and one is Asian. They were sentenced in 16 states, including three that had abolished the death penalty. Nine are on death row because they were convicted of killing fellow federal prisoners.

The three men who did not receive commutations are notorious mass killers. According to Newsweek, they include Dylann Roof, who carried out the racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured more than 260 in 2013; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 congregants after storming the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

Prior to these commutations, Biden had already begun to deploy his clemency power aggressively — commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people earlier this month, as well as his controversial pardon of his son Hunter Biden.

In a strange sort of way, President Biden's bold use of his clemency power to prevent the systematic execution of federal death row inmates strengthens the argument in support of the death penalty. He left three men on death row to most assuredly face death. While generally, Biden revealed his disdain for the death penalty, he does believe — and his actions prove it — that there needs to be a death penalty for some.

You are either for the death penalty or you're against it. Like the old saying goes, you can't be a little bit pregnant. One can't be an opponent of the death penalty only until something really bad happens.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on X @MatthewTMangino.

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Creators: Will Biden's Commutation Further Chill Clemency in Pennsylvania?

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators Syndicate
December 17, 2024

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro recently pointed out that "Governors and presidents have unique power to grant pardons and clemency and commute sentences. It is an absolute power, and it is a power that should be used incredibly carefully."

Recently, President Joe Biden granted clemency to nearly 1,500 Americans — the most ever in a single day, according to the White House. Biden was convinced these men and women had shown a successful record of rehabilitation and a strong commitment to making their communities safer.

The president commuted the sentences of individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities. He also pardoned 39 individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes.

Biden's decision to commute the 17-year prison sentence of Michael Conahan has become a flash point in northeastern Pennsylvania. Biden has always talked with affection about his upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania. However, his decision to commute Conahan's sentence has ruffled feathers in his old hometown and beyond.

In what became known as the "kids-for-cash" scandal, Conahan and Judge Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from a friend of Conahan's who built and co-owned two for-profit detention centers.

Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of children would fill the beds of the private centers. The scandal prompted the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to throw out about 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 children.

The people of Pennsylvania have had a complicated and politically distorted view of clemency.

In Pennsylvania, the governor's clemency authority, derived by Article IV, Section 9 of the state constitution, is limited by the Board of Pardons. The board is comprised of the lieutenant governor, attorney general and three members appointed by the governor. Traditionally, if a majority of the board were to vote in favor of an application, the board recommends favorable action to the governor. If less than a majority of the board vote in favor, the result was a denial by the board and the application was not forwarded to the governor.

In the 1970s, mercy toward those serving life in prison flourished. Democratic Gov. Milton Shapp commuted 251 life sentences.

Today, clemency for a life or death sentence requires a unanimous vote of the board. The change came in 1996 with the election of Gov. Tom Ridge. During the campaign, Ridge attacked his opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Singel, for recommending, as a member of the Board of Pardons, a pardon for Reginald McFadden. Once released, McFadden committed another murder.

As a result of McFadden, pardons for serious crimes slowed to less than a trickle in Pennsylvania. Ridge, who won, in part, on the back of McFadden, never pardoned an inmate serving a life sentence. Ridge's Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker, who took over after Ridge became the first secretary of Homeland Security, pardoned one lifer. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, pardoned five lifers in eight years, and his successor GOP Tom Corbett commuted zero.

Shapiro, Pennsylvania's current governor, said Biden "got it absolutely wrong" when he commuted Conahan's sentence.

Shapiro said, "I study every single case that comes across my desk where there's a request for a pardon or clemency or a reduction of sentence, and I take it very seriously. I weigh the merits of the case. I weigh what occurred in the court proceedings. I think about public safety and victims and all of those issues factor into my decision."

Shapiro's predecessor, Democrat Tom Wolfe, pardon 53 lifers between 2015 and 2023 — a meager few when compared to Shapp in the 1970s, but a substantial improvement, nonetheless.

There are many men and women worthy of mercy. Will Biden's clemency for Conahan have a chilling effect on commutations in Pennsylvania the same way Reginald McFadden nearly extinguished clemency for inmates facing life in prison?

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on X @MatthewTMangino.

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South Carolina executes man despite calls for clemency by judge

 The 21st Execution of 2024

Richard Moore was executed Friday, November 1, 2024 by lethal injection, despite calls for clemency from three jurors and the judge who sent him to death row 23 years ago, reported the South Carolina Daily Gazette.

Gov. Henry McMaster denied Moore’s request for clemency. The governor was Moore’s last chance at avoiding the death chamber after the U.S. Supreme Court declined Thursday to halt the execution.

“I have carefully reviewed and thoughtfully considered the application, matters of record, including transcripts, briefs, and judicial decisions,” he wrote in his denial, noting he’d also spoken to family members of Moore’s victim, James Mahoney.

Moore was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m., 23 minutes after pentobarbital began flowing into his arm.

Moore kept his eyes closed and his face pointed toward the ceiling. He took several deep, loud breaths that sounded almost like snores, followed by short, shallow breaths. He seemed to stop moving around 6:04 p.m., said the three media witnesses who watched the execution.

He did not show any outward signs of pain, they said.

Moore’s attorney, Lindsey Vann with Justice 360, cried and held a small cross. His spiritual advisor held her hand after Moore appeared to take his last breath. Two unnamed members of Mahoney’s family and 7th Circuit Solicitor Barry Barnette watched stoically, media witnesses said.

Moore, 59, was sentenced to death in 2001 for killing Mahoney, a gas station clerk, in Spartanburg County two years prior. He was the second death row inmate to die since executions resumed in September.

In his final statement, Moore apologized to Mahoney’s family and told his children he loved them.

“To the family of Mr. Mahoney, I am deeply sorry for the pain and sorrow I caused you all,” Moore’s last statement read, said prison spokeswoman Chrysti Shain. “To my children and granddaughters, I love you, and I am so proud of you. Thank you for the joy you have brought to my life. To all of my family and friends, new and old, thank you for your love and support.”

Media witnesses did not hear his statement read.

 Two jurors, the trial judge, and the state’s former corrections director were among more than two dozen people who wrote letters to McMaster as part of a clemency application, submitted Wednesday, asking the governor to instead give Moore life in prison.

A third juror joined their calls Friday, saying Moore “appears to be a positive influence on his peers” while in prison, according to an email provided by Moore’s attorneys.

“I understand that Mr. Moore has shown much regret, and changed his life,” juror Jennifer Stone wrote. “I also see that he has children that love him and want him in their life.”

Four more inmates have exhausted their appeals processes, making them eligible for death warrants. Executions in the state are expected to continue every five weeks through March.

Moore entered Nikki’s Speedy Mart in Spartanburg around 3 a.m. on Sept. 16, 1999. He went first to the store’s cooler, then to the counter, where 42-year-old clerk Mahoney was watching the news for information on a hurricane, according to court documents.

Terry Hadden, a regular customer playing video poker nearby, testified during Moore’s trial that he turned after hearing Mahoney say, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Hadden, who was blind in one eye, told jurors that when he turned, he saw Moore holding both of Mahoney’s hands in one of his own, with a gun in the other hand.

What happened between Moore and Mahoney that night remains unclear. Prosecutors said Moore, who entered the store unarmed, took the gun the store owner kept behind the counter. Moore, who had just lost his job, wanted to rob the store to get money to buy crack cocaine, prosecutors argued.

Moore didn’t testify at his original trial, but in a later appeals hearing, he said he and Mahoney got into an argument because Moore was a few cents short on his purchase. Mahoney took out his gun, which he kept in his waistband for protection. Moore managed to get the other gun from behind the counter and shot Mahoney in self-defense, his attorneys have said.

Moore fired at Hadden, who fell to the floor and played dead, Hadden testified. He didn’t see what happened next. At some point, Mahoney shot Moore in the left arm, and Moore shot Mahoney through the heart.

Before he left, Moore stepped over Mahoney’s body and took a blue vinyl bag containing $1,408, according to court documents.

Moore, still bleeding, drove to his drug dealer’s house and asked to buy cocaine, or for his dealer, George Gibson, to take him to the hospital, Gibson testified. When Gibson refused, Moore drove off.

On his way out, he hit a pole, attracting the attention of a police officer. The officer came over, and Moore got out of the car, allegedly saying, “I did it. I did it. I give up. I give up,” the officer later testified.

The stolen money, covered in blood, sat in the front seat of Moore’s truck, alongside an open pocket knife, the officer testified.

Moore, who is Black, was convicted two years later, in 2001, by a jury with no Black members.

His attorneys have argued repeatedly and unsuccessfully that prosecutors struck potential Black jurors because of their race.

The state’s prosecutors have maintained the attorneys in that trial did not consider race in removing jurors. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Thursday in an order declining to halt Moore’s execution.

Moore’s attorneys claim they can prove Mahoney fired the first shot, which struck the wall above Hadden. The placement of shell casings found at the crime scene supports Moore firing in self-defense, private forensic investigator Robert Tressel said in a statement included with Moore’s clemency application.

But no court ever agreed to hear that evidence because the rules around appeals are so strict, said Vann, Moore’s attorney.

Retired Circuit Court Judge Gary Clary, who oversaw Moore’s 2001 trial and death sentence, called for Moore to receive clemency in a letter submitted to the governor Wednesday.

“In no way do I quibble with the jury’s verdict, and I make no excuse on behalf of Mr. Moore for his actions that resulted in the death of James Mahoney,” wrote Clary, a Republican who was elected to the state House after he retired from the bench.

“Over the years, I have studied the case of each person who resides on death row in South Carolina,” his letter continued. “Richard Bernard Moore’s case is unique, and after years of thought and reflection, I humbly ask that you grant executive clemency to Mr. Moore as an act of grace and mercy.”

Clary, who represented part of Pickens County for three terms, did not elaborate on what he felt made Moore’s case unique.

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Texas set to execute man in the face of enormous opposition due to conviction by shaken-baby syndrome

As Texas prison officials ready the death chamber to execute Robert Roberson tonight, a thundering chorus of people who believe the state is about to kill an innocent man hope last-minute measures will buy him more time, reported The Texas Tribune.

Roberson was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter, who was diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome. But experts, lawmakers and the lead detective in the girl’s case say the science supporting Roberson’s death sentence no longer holds up — and the state’s “junk science” law should have already halted his execution.

In an stunning move, a Texas House committee voted unanimously Wednesday to subpoena Roberson ahead of his Thursday execution, a step that sought to give the man a final lifeline after a series of court rejections left him on track to become the first person in the country executed for allegedly shaking a baby to death.

That move “sets up a bit of a separation of powers issue that I think would result in him not being executed tomorrow night,” Benjamin Wolff, director of the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, said on Wednesday, adding that he had not seen this maneuver attempted before, so it was not clear what could happen. “It’s an unprecedented subpoena and an unprecedented case.”

But Roberson set to be executed around 6p.m. Thursday, it’s unclear if that gambit will work.

The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee approved the subpoena hours after the state’s highest criminal court again declined to stop the execution, and after the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole denied Roberson’s request for clemency. Gov. Greg Abbott cannot defy the board’s recommendation, but he can issue a 30-day reprieve. Abbott has remained silent. Roberson’s lawyers have also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.

The committee’s subpoena — which was offered by state Reps. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, and Jeff Leach, R-Plano — calls for Roberson to "provide all relevant testimony and information concerning the committee's inquiry."

Gretchen Sween, Roberson's attorney, said that she had "no knowledge" of a subpoena being used before in an effort to pump the brakes on an execution.

"It shows how strongly the lawmakers who have learned about this case feel about the injustice," she said.

The parole board’s six members voted unanimously earlier Wednesday to deny Roberson's clemency application. The decision came amid a forceful bipartisan campaign to spare Roberson’s life, and as lawmakers raised concerns that the courts were not properly implementing a groundbreaking 2013 “junk science” law that was intended to provide justice to people convicted based on scientific evidence that has since changed or been debunked.

“It is not shocking that the criminal justice system failed Mr. Roberson so badly. What’s shocking is that, so far, the system has been unable to correct itself," Sween said in a statement after the board's vote. “We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man.”

Brian Wharton, the lead detective in Roberson’s case who sided with the prosecution at trial, has called for his exoneration, as has bestselling author John Grisham. A large majority of the Texas House has asked the courts to take a second look at his case. Doug Deason, a GOP megadonor and Abbott ally, also publicly said he believes in Roberson’s innocence, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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Creators: When Clemency Is Not Enough

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators Syndicate
March 11, 2024

Ever hear of Philip Esformes? If you haven't, chances are you will hear about him this summer or fall.

Philip Esformes was raised in an Orthodox Jewish community outside Chicago. His father, Morris Esformes, a rabbi, business executive and well-known philanthropist, made a fortune in the nursing home industry.

Philip eventually took over the family business, expanding the health care chain in Florida. According to The Washington Post, as Esformes' wealth expanded, he bought private planes, multiple residences and exotic cars; he drove a $1.6 million Ferrari and wore a $360,000 wristwatch.

The son of a rabbi was living the high life. That all came crashing down in 2016. Esformes was charged by the United States Department of Justice as part of the largest health-care fraud scheme ever prosecuted.

At the time, prosecutors said Esformes bribed doctors to put patients into his nursing homes, where they often received inadequate care or were given unnecessary services that were then billed to Medicare and Medicaid.

Esformes personally netted more than $37 million from the yearslong scheme. According to CNBC, a federal prosecutor described Esformes as "a man driven by almost unbounded greed."

The jury convicted him of 20 criminal counts at trial, but deadlocked on six other counts. A judge sentenced Esformes to twenty years in prison.

After his incarceration, Esformes immediately sought the influence of high-ranking former government officials to seek clemency. An attorney with the Aleph Institute, a Jewish charity affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and frequent object of the elder Esformes' charity, began lobbying the White House. Esformes' team enlisted help from Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, two former U.S. attorneys general; and Larry Thompson, a former second in command at the DOJ.

With the support of then Attorney General William Barr, the fruits of their labor paid off. Having served less than five years of a 20-year sentence, Esformes walked out of federal prison. In the waning days of Donald Trump's presidency, Trump granted him clemency.

Esformes had seemingly caught a big break. He was a free man. However, the Biden Justice Department had a different idea. The DOJ announced that it intended to retry Esformes on the six counts that the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Retrying a defendant on charges in which the jury is deadlocked, commonly known as "hung," is not unusual. Retrying a defendant after a few charges are hung but a majority of charges result in convictions is unusual. Retrying a defendant on hung charges after clemency is granted is also extremely unusual.

It was Trump who left the door open to new prosecutions. Trump granted clemency, cutting short the length of the sentence, on the 20 charges Esformes was convicted of but did not grant relief on the six charges he was not convicted.

The questions surrounding the case come down to whether trying Esformes again violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — being tried twice for the same crime.

According to The Washington Post, prosecutors argued that if Trump had wanted to make sure Esformes could not be retried on the hung counts, "he could easily have done so" by granting him a pardon or specifically referencing those counts. "He did neither," they wrote.

Although the decision to retry Esformes was universally assailed on the "right," it appears to have been accepted by his legal team.

Last month, Esformes pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and was sentenced to time served, with prosecutors agreeing to dismiss the remaining five counts.

In the meantime, the Federal Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's judgment on Esformes' original convictions and sentence, the restitution award of $5.5 million and the forfeiture judgment in the amount of $38.7 million.

It was a rather subdued conclusion to what started out as a highly charged decision by the DOJ. If this were any other year or any other time, that might be the end of the story. But this is 2024, anything is political fair game in the Trump v. Biden rematch.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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PA Gov. Wolf pardons Rapper Meek Mill while becoming the most prolific granter of pardons in the state's history

 Departing Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf has pardoned Rapper Meek Mill. The rapper announced the pardon of his conviction on firearms and drug charges on social media, reported CNN.

On Instagram, he posted the official pardon document. In the caption, the Philadelphia native thanked his fans. “I’m only gone do more for my community on god,” he wrote.

Meek Mill was one of 369 Pennsylvanians pardoned by the governor this week, a representative of the governor told CNN over email. The pardons granted in the past week raise Wolf’s total pardons to 2,540, the most ever granted by a Pennsylvania governor, according to a Thursday news release from the governor’s office.

An official pardon means “total forgiveness by the state for a criminal conviction” and allows a person to completely clear their criminal record, says the release.

“I have taken this process very seriously — reviewing and giving careful thought to each and every one of these 2,540 pardons and the lives they will impact,” said Wolf in the news release. “Every single one of the Pennsylvanians who made it through the process truly deserves their second chance, and it’s been my honor to grant it.”

Meek Mill was originally convicted in 2008 and sentenced to probation. In 2018, he received a two-to-four year prison sentence for violating his probation, which sparked the viral #FreeMeekMill movement and triggered an outcry from criminal justice activists.

Since then, Meek Mill has become a vocal advocate for criminal justice reform, launching an organization called the REFORM Alliance in 2019. The organization “aims to transform probation and parole by changing laws, systems and culture to create real pathways to work and wellbeing” according to its website.

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Biden pardons six people while vacationing in St. Croix

 President Joe Biden has pardoned six people who have served out sentences after convictions on a murder charge and drug- and alcohol-related crimes, including an 80-year-old woman convicted of killing her abusive husband about a half-century ago and a man who pleaded guilty to using a telephone for a cocaine transaction in the 1970s, reported The Associated Press.

The pardons, announced Friday, mean the criminal record of the crimes is now purged. They come a few months after the Democratic president pardoned thousands of people convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law. He also pardoned three people earlier this year and has commuted the sentences of 75 others.

Biden’s stance on low-level crimes, particularly low-level drug possession, and how those crimes can impact families and communities for decades to come has evolved over his 50 years in public service. In the 1990s, he supported crime legislation that increased arrest and incarceration rates for drug crimes, particularly for Black and Latino people. Biden has said people are right to question his stance on the bill, but he also has encouraged them to look at what he’s doing now on crime.

The pardons were announced while the president was spending time with his family on St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The White House said those pardoned are people who went on to serve their communities. It said the pardons reflect Biden’s view people deserve a second chance.

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Biden pardons thousands of 'simple possession' of marijuana

President Joe Biden is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law, as his administration takes a dramatic step toward decriminalizing the drug and addressing charging practices that disproportionately impact people of color, reported The Associated Press.

Biden’s move also covers thousands convicted of the crime in the District of Columbia. He is also calling on governors to issue similar pardons for those convicted of state marijuana offenses, which reflect the vast majority of marijuana possession cases.

Biden, in a statement, said the move reflects his position that “no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.”

“Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana,” he added. “It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

According to the White House, no one is currently in federal prison solely for “simple possession” of the drug, but the pardon could help thousands overcome obstacles to renting a home or finding a job.

 “There are thousands of people who have prior Federal convictions for marijuana possession, who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result,” he said. “My action will help relieve the collateral consequences arising from these convictions.”

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Oregon governor has granted more clemency than all predecessors combined over last 50 years

Last October, Kate Brown, the governor of Oregon, signed an executive order granting clemency to 73 people who had committed crimes as juveniles, clearing a path for them to apply for parole, reported The Guardian.

The move marked the high point in a remarkable arc: as Brown approaches the end of her second term in January, she has granted commutations or pardons to 1,147 people – more than all of Oregon’s governors from the last 50 years combined.

The story of clemency in Oregon is one of major societal developments colliding: the pressure the Covid-19 pandemic put on the prison system and growing momentum for criminal justice reform.

It’s also a story of a governor’s personal convictions and how she came to embrace clemency as a tool for criminal justice reform and as an act of grace, exercising the belief that compassionate mercy and ensuring public safety are not mutually exclusive.

“If you are confident that you can keep people safe, you’ve given victims the opportunity to have their voices heard and made sure their concerns are addressed, and individuals have gone through an extensive amount of rehabilitation and shown accountability, what is the point of continuing to incarcerate someone, other than retribution?” Brown said in a June interview.

When Brown, a Democrat, became governor in Oregon in 2015, she received the power of executive clemency – an umbrella term referring to the ability of American governors and the president to grant mercy to criminal defendants. Clemency includes pardons, which fully forgive someone who has committed a crime; commutations, which change prison sentences, often resulting in early release; reprieves, which pause punishment; and eliminating court-related fines and fees.

During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Brown was one of 18 governors across the US who used clemency to quickly reduce prison populations in the hopes of curbing virus transmission.

She approved the early release of 963 people who had committed nonviolent crimes and met six additional criteria – not enough, according to estimates by the state’s department of corrections, to enable physical distancing, and far less than California, which released about 5,300 people, and New Jersey, which released 40% of its prison population.

But Brown’s clemency acts stand out in other ways. Brown removed one year from the sentences of 41 prisoners who worked as firefighters during the 2020 wildfire season, the most destructive in Oregon history. 

She has pardoned 63 people. Most notably, she has commuted the sentences of 144 people convicted of crimes as serious as murder, yet have demonstrated “extraordinary evidence of rehabilitation”.

Democratic and Republican governors in North Carolina, Louisiana, Missouri, Kansas and Ohio have granted clemency for similar reasons. Yet Brown’s numbers are among the highest in the US, and the impact of her decisions are profound: Oregon’s prison population declined for the first time since the passage of the state’s Measure 11 mandatory minimum sentencing law in 1994.

Measure 11 codified mandatory sentences for 16 violent crimes, required juveniles over the age of 15 charged with those crimes to be tried as adults, and ended earned time. Since its passage, Oregon’s prison population tripled to nearly 15,000 people and three new prisons were built.

Brown also stands out for who she grants clemency to. Forty per cent of Brown’s commutations are Black, in response to Black Oregonians being incarcerated at a rate five times higher than their share of the state’s population. Nearly two dozen other clemency recipients were convicted as juveniles. Many were sentenced to life without parole and other lengthy sentences.

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SCOTUS opens door to executing intellectually disabled Missouri man

Last-minute court intervention was the last obstacle to the execution of Ernest Johnson, a Missouri man convicted of killing three convenience store workers during a closing-time robbery nearly 28 years ago, reported ABC News.

Johnson, 61, was scheduled to die by injection tonight at the state prison in Bonne Terre, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of St. Louis. It would be the seventh U.S. execution this year.

Johnson's attorney, Jeremy Weis, said executing Johnson would violate the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits executing intellectually disabled people. On Monday, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution.

“This is not a close case — Mr. Johnson is intellectually disabled,” the court filing stated.

The Missouri Supreme Court in August, and again on Friday, refused to step in despite Johnson's history of scoring extremely low on IQ tests, dating back to childhood. Weis said Johnson also was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and lost about one-fifth of his brain tissue when a benign tumor was removed in 2008.

Republican Gov. Michael Parson on Monday declined to grant clemency despite the urging of several people, including the pope. A representative for Pope Francis wrote in a letter to Parson last week that the pope “wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr. Johnson’s humanity and the sacredness of all human life.” Parson announced Monday he would not intervene.

It wasn't the first time a pope has sought to intervene in a Missouri execution. In 1999, during his visit to St. Louis, Pope John Paul II persuaded Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan to grant clemency to Darrell Mease, weeks before Mease was to be put to death for a triple killing. Carnahan, who died in 2000, was a Baptist, as is Parson.

In 2018, Pope Francis Francis changed church teaching to say capital punishment can never be sanctioned because it constitutes an “attack” on human dignity. Catholic leaders have been outspoken opponents of the death penalty in many states.

Racial justice activists and two Missouri congressional members — Democratic U.S. Reps. Cori Bush of St. Louis and Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City —have also spoke out in support of Johnson, who is Black. Bush planned to attend a prayer vigil near the prison on Tuesday.

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Gov. Wolf signs off on 310 pardons

Gov. Tom Wolf has signed off on 310 pardons, 69 of them impacting the lives of nonviolent marijuana offenders, whom criminal justice advocates say face a lifetime of repercussions for an offense that's now treated no more seriously than a traffic ticket in some jurisdictions across the state, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Wolf signed the pardons last week, his office said in a statement. The marijuana offenders were included in a new state program, started in 2019, under the auspices of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who chairs the state Board of Pardons, and who has been an outspoken advocate of cannabis legalization. The program speeds up the lengthy pardons process for people with nonviolent convictions for marijuana possession or paraphernalia charges.

"These pardons will give these 310 people a chance to put the conviction behind them, offering them more opportunities as they build careers, buy homes, and move on with their lives free of this burden,” Wolf said in a statement released by his office. “In particular, the nonviolent marijuana convictions-associated pardons have been expedited to make what was a years-long process now a matter of months.”

In all, Wolf has signed 95 pardons related to the expedited marijuana conviction review program, his office said in a statement.

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Oklahoma man who receives early release from prison kills three

An Oklahoma man who was released early from prison broke into a woman’s home this month, cut out her heart, cooked it and tried to feed it to his relatives — and then killed two of them, reported the New York Times.

The man, Lawrence Paul Anderson, who has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the killings, had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017 for a probation violation in a drug case, but public records show that he was granted clemency last year by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board as part of a mass commutation program.

His sentence was reduced to nine years, but he was required to serve only three years and was released in January.

Now, prosecutors are questioning how Mr. Anderson, 42, who had been incarcerated several times before, became eligible for a sentence commutation, which requires the governor’s approval. The district attorney in charge of the case said during a news conference on Tuesday that he could seek the death penalty for Mr. Anderson.

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About 177 recommended pardons await the governor's signature in Pennsylvania

Nearly 200 people have been waiting months for Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf to clear their criminal records by signing off on pardons already approved by the state Board of Pardons, reported The Appeal.

Last year, the board, which must vote to recommend each pardon before it can go to the governor for final consideration, approved nearly 300 cases. As of Aug. 11, 177 pardons were still sitting on Wolf’s desk.

“The Governor is under no time constraint in which he must make a final decision on a recommendation for pardon, and takes that time to ensure his complete and thorough review and consideration of each recommendation,” Wolf’s spokesperson Sara Goulet told The Appeal in an email.

Goulet provided no timeline for when Wolf was expected to act on the recommendations.

According to data provided by board secretary Brandon Flood, more than 70 percent of all clemency cases that the board heard in 2019, which includes both commutations and pardons requests, involved nonviolent offenses.

Flood told The Appeal that the cases that are approved by the board for a pardon typically involve drug offenses, retail theft or property crimes, or misdemeanor assault.

Goulet did not provide The Appeal with a list of the convictions associated with the pardons awaiting Wolf’s signature but said they “run the gamut from misdemeanor to felony and do include some violent crimes.”  

“The impact that a conviction has on an individuals’ ability to move forward in life is stunning,” Ryan Hancock, co-founder and board chairperson of the Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity, told The Appeal. Most profoundly, he said, it makes it very difficult to get a job—an issue that has a new sense of urgency given the COVID-19 pandemic and Pennsylvania’s double-digit unemployment rate.

According to the Council of State Governments Justice Center, there are nearly 500 collateral consequences of a criminal conviction in Pennsylvania which, by law, either bar people with criminal convictions from doing certain jobs or place significant barriers to employment.

Even beyond those legal barriers, simply having a criminal conviction can make getting a job, or even a job interview, drastically more difficult. A 2003 study by the Harvard sociologist Devah Pager found that having a criminal conviction for a drug offense cut the rate at which white applicants received a call back for a job interview in half and cut the rate for Black applicants by nearly two-thirds.

“Not only have they long served their sentence and paid back their debt to society, but these are individuals who have succeeded despite all the collateral consequences they face every day,” Hancock said. “These are individuals who are just grasping at the opportunity to live like every ordinary citizen.”

The effects of a pardon go beyond just the individual who receives one.

A recent study by the New Economy League found that pardons granted in Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2018 increased the state economy by $16 million over the course of a decade, by allowing for increased wages for the recipients.

And without a robust opportunity for people to clear their records, the state, and therefore the country, suffers economically because of the sheer number of people touched by mass incarceration. A 2010 study by economists John Schmitt and Kris Warner found that the high volume of people with prison and felony records increased unemployment and lowered the country’s GDP by roughly $60 billion in 2008 alone. In 2016, more than 110 million adults in the U.S. had an arrest record.

Wolf recently touted the one-year anniversary of the state’s automatic “clean slate” law, which seals certain convictions after a period of time, and the passage of legislation that eliminates some barriers to job licensure for people with criminal convictions.

Hancock commended Wolf for his overall commitment to second chances, but criticized him for having still not approved the pardons. Wolf has granted more than 900 pardons and a total of 21 commutations of life sentences since taking office in January 2015. 

“It’s deeply disturbing and upsetting that the governor is not taking more seriously these individuals’ plights by not having that pardon,” Hancock said. “Can you imagine getting that pardon and thinking your life was going to change and it hasn’t one year later?”

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GateHouse: Stone’s commutation is an impeachable offense

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

July 17, 2020

Only days before President Richard Nixon resigned, Mary Lawton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, wrote a memo addressing whether the president could pardon himself.

Lawton wrote, “Pursuant to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the ‘Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment,’ is vested in the president. This raises the question whether the president can pardon himself. Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, it would seem that the question should be answered in the negative.”

President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Roger Stone on July 10. Stone was convicted of seven felonies for obstructing a congressional inquiry, lying to investigators under oath and trying to block the testimony of a witness. Stone’s commutation is not a self-pardon but it is as close as a president can get.

For over a century, the Department of Justice has utilized a Pardon Attorney to vet requests for justice and mercy. The Pardon Attorney makes a recommendation to the president for each request. According to the legal blog Lawfare, “The idea is to place a rigorous process between the president and requests for pardons in order to guard against the reality and perception of politicized pardons.”

According to Lawfare, 31 of the 36 Trump pardons - including Stone’s - were not based on the Pardon Attorney’s recommendations.

As Lawton wrote in her memo, Article II, Section 2, gives the Commander-in-Chief power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.” The clemency authority bestowed on the president permits him to grant a reprieve - as in stopping the carrying out of an execution; a pardon - erase a conviction like it never happened; or a commutation - end, or as in Stone’s case - stop the imposition of term of incarceration.

Alexander Hamilton, articulated the rationale for presidential pardons in the Federalist Papers when he wrote in No. 74 that “without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.”

The power to pardon was proposed as part of a system of checks and balances proposed by the founding fathers. Clemency was a check by the executive branch of government on the judicial branch.

The power to pardon was never intended to shield a co-conspirator or reward an individual for not cooperating with an investigation that could implicate the president. Shortly before his sentence was commuted, Stone said that Trump “knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him,” and added, “It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”

Stone’s statement implies that he had damaging evidence against the president. Stone had information that could have been used against the president during his impeachment trial and he did not reveal it, and the president rewarded him with a commutation of this sentence. Stone was going to jail and the president stopped it.

Cory Brettschneider, a professor at Brown University and Jeffrey K. Tulis, a professor at the University of Texas recently wrote in The Atlantic, the power to grant “pardons and reprieves” is constrained by a limit: “except in cases of impeachment.”

Brettschneider wrote back in February for Politico, ”(T)he Constitution’s text and the historical evidence show that once a president has been impeached, he or she loses the power to pardon anyone for criminal offenses connected to the articles of impeachment - and that even after the Senate’s failure to convict the president, he or she does not regain this power.”

Since Trump’s impeachment acquittal by the Senate he has fired several inspectors general, retaliated against officials who testified truthfully to Congress, and now commuted the sentence of a man who acknowledged protecting the president during the impeachment inquiry. These actions are all abuses of presidential power, and warrant impeachment and removal from office.

Sure, we have been down that road and the country is in the midst of a presidential election. But, this is no time to shrug our collective shoulders. This president, now more than ever, needs to be held accountable.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.

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Mueller Defends Prosecution of Roger Stone

The former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III broke his long silence on Saturday to defend his prosecution of Roger J. Stone Jr., forcefully rebutting President Trump’s claims that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was political and illegitimate, reported the New York Times.

Speaking out the day after Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Stone’s prison sentence for obstructing an inquiry into Russia’s role in the campaign, Mr. Mueller said Mr. Stone was no innocent victim and emphasized that the president’s clemency grant did not erase the conviction on seven felony counts.

“Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes,” Mr. Mueller wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post. “He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”

Mr. Mueller seemed most aggrieved over the president’s assertions of bad faith on the part of those who prosecuted Mr. Stone and others affiliated with Mr. Trump.

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PA governor has ability to remove thousands of vulnerable people from state prison

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf most likely has the ability to remove thousands of the most vulnerable people from state prison with the stroke of his pen as COVID-19 spreads across the state, reported The Appeal. But he is not using that authority.

In an email obtained by The Appeal and sent to a spokesperson at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), Anne Cornick, deputy general counsel for the state Office of General Counsel, said the agency reviewed whether Wolf has the authority to issue reprieves—temporary suspensions of prison sentences. The office, which advises the governor and other executive agencies on legal matters, determined that Wolf “could probably do it,” Cornick wrote, but “it was not the preference” to use the reprieve power.

The email was part of an internal discussion about how to respond to questions from The Appeal regarding Wolf’s ability to grant reprieves. Cornick directed the DOC spokesperson to avoid discussing the option in its response. “I think we want to give an answer that doesn’t answer directly the reprieve questions,” Cornick wrote. 

Neither Cornick nor the governor’s office responded to a request for comment. The DOC did not respond to a request for comment, but lawyers for the department asserted that the emails obtained by The Appeal were covered under attorney-client privilege.

Reprieves are a form of clemency, but they do not go as far as commutations, which permanently reduce a criminal sentence, and pardons, which absolve a person of criminal wrongdoing.

Although Wolf has previously used reprieves to delay executions, Ben Notterman, a research fellow at New York University’s Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, told The Appeal that the power is much more expansive and largely unchecked in Pennsylvania. 

“I’m sure there are logistical and public health-related considerations about the manner in which we remove people, but there don’t seem to be any legal (or moral) ones,” Notterman said in an email. “And it should be done immediately, while we are still able to limit COVID-19’s spread.”

The state Constitution gives the governor the sole authority to grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons. However, the governor must receive approval from the state Board of Pardons before issuing commutations or pardons. 

This restriction is not placed on reprieves. 

“The current COVID-19 crisis illustrates precisely why reprieves—unlike pardons and commutations—are free from regulation: the governor needs a mechanism to act immediately to avoid disaster in prisons/jails, whether the disaster is putting a potentially innocent person to death or stemming a viral outbreak that could lead to many deaths,” Notterman said.

NYU law professor Rachel Barkow, an expert on clemency in the United States, agrees with Notterman’s assessment. Barkow recently called on governors across the country to use their executive authority to remove people from prisons and jails to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

A protest in Philadelphia on Monday, urging Mayor Jim Kenney and Governor Tom Wolf to reduce jail and prison populations as COVID-19 spreads.Decarcerate PA

While officials across the country have begun to release people from jails during the pandemic, they have moved more slowly to release state prisoners. Jails typically have more options to release those held in custody. In Pennsylvania, judges can usually grant early release for most people sentenced to jail time, or they can reduce or choose not to impose bail requirements.

State prisons generally have fewer mechanisms for early release. In Pennsylvania, parole must be approved by the parole board, the compassionate release program is restrictive, and there is no furlough program for people in prison.

On Monday, the DOC announced that all incarcerated people would be put under quarantine as a precaution, a day after the agency said a man being held at State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Montgomery County had tested positive for COVID-19. He is the first incarcerated person in a Pennsylvania prison to test positive for the disease.

Prisons and jails historically have been a hub for the spread of communicable diseases. A lack of access to personal hygiene supplies, an inability to isolate or socially distance, and typically substandard medical care tend to allow for the proliferation of disease. For example, the rate of tuberculosis in prisons is nearly twice that of the general population, according to a study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. 

New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex has already seen rapid growth in COVID-19 infections. As of Monday, 167 people on Rikers Island had tested positive for the disease, a figure that is doubling roughly every two days. 

Bret Grote, legal director for the Abolitionist Law Center, said the U.S. needs to begin releasing people in prison to halt the spread of the disease. More than 20,000 people are already released from Pennsylvania prisons every year, he said, “and if political will is to be commensurate to the magnitude of the looming crisis, at least 10,000 can be safely released in an expedited fashion to relieve the burden on the system and limit transmission of COVID-19 inside the prison and among the broader community.”

There are currently more than 45,000 people held in state prisons in Pennsylvania. As of last week, the DOC had only four ventilators to serve that entire population.

As of the end of 2018, more than 10,000 people being held in a state prison were 50 years old or older. According to the University of Oxford, people over 50 are at least four times more likely to die if they test positive for COVID-19 than people under 50. 

“Political cowardice must not allow our people behind the walls to become a sacrifice population,” Grote said

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Pardoning crimes directly related to impeachment would be unconstitutional

The framers of the Constitution contemplated the nightmare scenario—of an impeached President pardoning a co-conspirator—and they put in the Constitution language to legally prohibit the pardon power those situations, reported Politico.

Both the plain meaning of the Constitution’s text and the historical evidence show that once a president has been impeached, he or she loses the power to pardon anyone for criminal offenses connected to the articles of impeachment — and that even after the Senate’s failure to convict the president, he or she does not regain this power.

Under Article II, Section II of the Constitution, the president is given the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Pardons are supposed to be used as acts of mercy. The framers thought of the pardon power as a “benign prerogative”—prerogative because it was mostly unchecked by courts or Congress, but benign because presidents would use it for the public good.

But the framers knew not to place blind trust in the president to wield the power justly. That’s why they explicitly forbade a president from exercising the pardon power in “cases of impeachment.” The clause prevents the worst abuse of the pardon power: a president’s protecting cronies who have been convicted of crimes related to the president’s own wrongdoing.

This danger of a president using the pardon power to excuse his or her own crimes was discussed by George Mason at the 1788 Virginia ratifying convention, where delegates debated whether to adopt the document that had been drafted in Philadelphia. Mason thought the danger of the pardon was so great that it was among the reasons he argued the Constitution should not be ratified, and why he refused to sign the document. “The President ought not to have the power of pardoning, because he may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic. If he has the power of granting pardons before indictment, or conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent detection?”

Defenders of the Constitution knew they needed a robust response to the danger of a president’s abusing the pardon to protect co-conspirators. James Madison, a primary author of the Constitution, argued in reply to Mason that such pardons were barred by the Constitution as already written. He pointed to the protection already in the Constitution: No president could pardon co-conspirators. “If the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter himself; the House of Representatives can impeach him,” Madison responded to Mason. “[T]hey can remove him if found guilty; they can suspend him when suspected, and the power will devolve on the vice-president.”

Here Madison provides evidence that the intent of the framers was to limit the pardon power from being extended to a president who wanted to use it to pardon co-conspirators. His remarks are a guide to how we should interpret the limit explicitly written into the Constitution when it comes to cases of impeachment: It strips a president of the power to use a pardon to “shelter” anyone “connected in any suspicious manner” way with the president’s alleged high crimes and misdemeanors.

The limit on pardons for co-conspirators wouldn’t affect many of the president’s pardons. Pardoning convicted criminals like former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich might be ill-advised, but it is still permitted. By contrast, pardoning longtime adviser Roger Stone would not be permitted, as his crimes relate directly to the impeachment case.

Stone was convicted on seven criminal counts centered around allegations that he had lied to Congress during his September 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee as part of the Mueller investigation. The investigation of Stone relates to the charges that the president abused power by soliciting foreign intervention into our election and that he obstructed justice in trying to hide that “high crime and misdemeanor.” The best evidence that Stone is tied to those charges is his own self-described role as a protector of the president. “I will never roll on [Trump],” Stone declared in one of many statements. That makes him exactly the type of person Madison had envisioned while limiting the president’s pardon power.

It is true that the Stone investigation concerned Russian involvement in the election and that the House charges focused on the more recent Ukraine accusation. But the articles of impeachment focused on the accusation of “abuse of power,” and it is that general high crime at play in Ukraine and elsewhere that links the impeachment and Stone.

Inevitably, some will argue that an impeached president should regain the power to grant clemency to his alleged co-conspirators in cases of acquittal by the Senate. That ignores not only the framers’ clear intent, but also the plain text of the Constitution.

The framers deliberately used the phrase “cases of impeachment,” not “conviction.” One reason why is simple: A president convicted by the Senate would be removed from office, and thus unable to pardon anyone. As such, there would be no reason for the Constitution to curb a convicted president’s pardon power. No exception to the pardon power needs to be granted, because no such power exists.

Moreover, the framers provided no explicit avenue for him to regain the power they took away after a House impeachment vote. Time limits are common in the Constitution—think of the president’s four-year term—and the absence of one connected to the pardon power suggests that the power is not in fact lost for a limited duration. In the absence of an explicit reinstatement of pardon power in the text, the strong presumption has to be that it is still lost.

Nothing in the framers’ comments or the text itself speaks of the Senate vote to not convict as restoring the pardon power. The Senate trial is not subject to the rules of criminal law; presidents are not accused criminals who get all of their rights back upon a not guilty verdict. Moreover, the decision to impeach is left to the House “alone,” according to the Constitution’s text. Generally, the Senate and House have distinct powers in matters like taxation and ratifying treaties. The powers of each body in impeachment are also distinct. The percentage of votes required for impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate are distinct. So are the penalties. Only the House can decide whether to impeach the president, and only the Senate can decide upon removal and disqualification from office.

The argument for a constitutional limit on the power to pardon co-conspirators is strengthened by the widely acknowledged implicit limit on “self-pardons.” The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, prompted by the possibility that President Richard Nixon would try to grant clemency to himself for his role in Watergate, argued that a president could not pardon himself. According to that office, no person should be a “judge in his own case”; therefore, no president could self-pardon. Although not technically a self-pardon, pardons for co-conspirators are similarly aimed at self-protection, so should also be barred.

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Trump dangles clemency for Stone after berating the justice system

President Trump once again berated the “dirty cops” of the law enforcement establishment on Thursday, accusing the Justice Department of going after his friends but not his enemies in an outburst that flouted Attorney General William P. Barr’s pleas to stop publicly intervening in prosecutions where he had a personal interest, reported The New York Times.

Speaking out hours after his friend Roger J. Stone Jr. was sentenced to more than three years in prison for lying to protect the president, Mr. Trump belittled the case and hinted broadly that he would use his clemency power to spare Mr. Stone if a judge did not agree to a retrial sought by defense lawyers.

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The Appeal: Death by incarceration in Pennsylvania

Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board looked at two overlapping injustices in Pennsylvania: the large number of people sentenced to die in prison and the use of this sentence against people who are considered accomplices to a crime but did not kill anyone and are convicted of felony murder. It also discussed a mechanism for addressing these problems: the state’s clemency process, sidelined for decades but now experiencing a revival through the leadership of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, writes Vaidya Gullapalli of The Appeal.

A sentence of life in prison is an extreme punishment, yet these sentences are common in the United States. The Sentencing Project has found that 1 in 7 people in prison in the U.S. are serving a life sentence or what, by virtue of sentence length, is its equivalent. There are more people sentenced to die in prison than there were people in prison in the early 1970s.

Pennsylvania is one of the worst U.S. states on the matter of life without parole sentences. There are more than 5,300 people in prison for life in the state. (In absolute numbers, only Florida has more people in prison for life.) These sentences have been incredibly concentrated, with more than half of those people sentenced in Philadelphia. And while life without parole sentences have been used disproportionately against Black and Latinx people across the country, Pennsylvania is even worse than the national average on this measure.

These numbers are the product of the tough-on-crime sentencing laws that swept the nation in the ’80s. In commentary for the Inquirer in January, Ashley Nellis of the Sentencing Project and co-author of “The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences,” identified three sets of laws that contribute to Pennsylvania’s flood of life sentences. First, a life sentence in Pennsylvania is automatically a life without parole sentence. (It is one of only five states where parole is not available for anyone sentenced to life in prison.) Second, life sentences are automatic for anyone convicted of first- or second-degree murder. This includes felony murder, in which a person who is considered an accomplice to murder but did not kill anyone, which is second-degree murder. Finally, the state charges children as young as 14 as adults, resulting in, as Nellis wrote, “the nation’s—and the world’s—largest population of lifers who were juveniles at the time of their offense.”

The problem has been clear for some time. State lawmakers have introduced bills to restore parole eligibility for some people sentenced to life in prison. There have also been legislative efforts to address the injustice of felony murder sentencing. These bills have not yet passed in the legislature.

At the local level, in Philadelphia at least, there has been an attempt to correct the practice of overcharging that contributed to so many people being sentenced to death in prison. For too long, at the local level, district attorneys have used harsh sentences as a tool to extract pleas and have made bringing the highest charges possible the default. These charging decisions, made by prosecutors with full information about sentence lengths (unlike jurors, who lack this information at trial), make extremely long sentences the norm. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is trying to change this, introducing a policy of carefully considering the full spectrum of charges available in homicide cases and evaluating which is most appropriate on a case-by-case basis.

These necessary efforts all address the front-end and the flow into the prison system. But as is the case nationally, it is important to couple these efforts with mechanisms to release the people who are already in prison. In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. Fetterman, chairperson of the state Board of Pardons, has made restarting the clemency process, including for people convicted of violent crimes, a priority. Since Governor Tom Wolf took office, he has granted commutations to 11 people who had been sentenced to die in prison. In September, the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons recommended commutations for nine people in prison for life. In Philadelphia, the DA’s office Conviction Review Unit examines cases for unjust sentencing as well as wrongful convictions.

The work to address Pennsylvania’s incarceration system has been underway for a long time. The movements that propelled Krasner to Philadelphia DA have also envisioned the review of extreme sentences. People who have lost loved ones both to homicides and to the prison system have described themselves as “dual victims” and called for an end to life without parole sentences.

Last year, the Philadelphia-based Abolitionist Law Center issued a report on life without parole sentences in Pennsylvania and recommendations for ending the practice.

“The situation of permanent imprisonment for more than 5,300 people in Pennsylvania is untenable,” the authors wrote. “It does not have to be this way. In the vast majority of the world, it is not. DBI [death by incarceration] sentences are another peculiarly U.S.-based phenomenon. Around much of the world such sentences are not permitted, and where they are they are not imposed at anywhere near the levels that they are imposed in this country. The racial demographics of DBI sentences are a scandal and a human rights travesty.”

And these sentences do not just affect people in prison. They afflict families and cripple communities. “The consequences of DBI sentencing extend far beyond the prison walls,” the authors continued. “The total absence of redemptive opportunity hardens punitive attitudes in society by legitimating the most destructive and divisive impulses within people: fear, vengeance, racism, and cruelty.”

To fight to end death by incarceration sentences, they wrote, is also to fight for a society ordered around different values. “Ultimately, the fight to abolish DBI sentences is a fight over what type of society we want to live in, whether we will organize around values of restoration and redemption and healing or continue down the path of fear and stigma and vengeance. The fight is about how much injustice people will tolerate from the government.”

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Oklahoma grants clemency to 2% of all prison inmates

Across Oklahoma on Monday, 462 inmates doing time for drug possession or similar nonviolent crimes had their sentences commuted as the first step in an effort by state officials to shed the title of the nation’s incarceration capital, reported the New York Times.

“This is truly a blessing, to be able to get out on something like this, when you get overlooked so often,” said Ms. Faircloth, who plans to return to Willow, Okla., and hopes to attend college and score a job at a Hobby Lobby store.

As she and the other prisoners left the Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center, they embraced relatives, some of whom they had not seen in months or years. Camera crews crowded around, recording a scene that would have been unfathomable in the state just a few years ago.

For more than a decade, legislators in several states have sought to send fewer nonviolent, low-level offenders to prison, in an effort to save money on incarceration and reserve resources for going after more serious criminals. Those efforts have occurred in states led by both Democrats and Republicans, including neighboring Texas.

But change has been slower to come to Oklahoma, which continues to vie with Louisiana for the highest per-capita imprisonment rate in the country.

Voters forced the hand of Oklahoma lawmakers in 2016 when, by a wide margin, they approved a plan to shrink prison rolls by downgrading many felonies to misdemeanors, including simple drug possession and minor property crimes.

The Legislature then approved a measure this year making that law retroactive and allowing the state’s pardon and parole board to more quickly review the sentences of many inmates whose crimes would no longer be considered felonies if they were charged today.

On Friday, the pardon and parole board recommended immediately commuting the sentences of 527 prisoners under that law, or about 2 percent of the state’s prison population of just under 26,000 inmates.

The governor, Kevin Stitt, ordered the commutations, and all but 65 of the 527 inmates walked out of prison on Monday; the remainder were being detained because of issues with their immigration status or because they face charges in other states, according to Oklahoma officials.

In addition to releasing the inmates sooner than expected, the state is taking other steps favored by criminal justice reform advocates to help the newly released prisoners with re-entry into society. Those include ensuring that inmates are released with a state-issued driver’s license or identification card, which are crucial for securing jobs, housing and other needs.

State officials said the prisoners being released had on average spent three years incarcerated, and were being let out an average of 1.34 years early. About three out of four are men. Officials also estimated that the release would save about $12 million in incarceration costs.

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